Where have all the these Cutlass Supreme coupes gone to? They were the best selling car in America during some of its years, and it seems like just yesterday that these were everywhere. In its peak years, 1978 and 1979, about a half million new ones poured out into our streets each year. They were the Camry CRV of its time. Who would have thought in 1978 that a Japanese-brand SUV would one day be the best selling vehicle in all the land?

But it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen one, and it’s not the only car of its kind that’s getting scarce. Any RWD GM car is starting to be a genuine sighting, instead of just another eyesore.

I’m not going to guess at the exact year, except that it’s from the first generation of these downsized Cutlass Supremes, meaning 1978-1980.

Its vinyl roof is showing the effects of being exposed to the elements all these years. It’s kind of an interesting effect actually.

A closer look shows that it has stage IV vinylnoma. Meaning it’s terminal. No chemotherapy is going to save this one.

The interior has been better preserved than the top, although it’s showing some signs of aging too. The sagging door stash-pocket is an interesting touch. And of course those hard and nasty plastic lower door panels are showing the usual blotchy skin issue. Is that black steering wheel original? It can’t be.

We can only speculate what’s under the hood, but we know it won’t likely be a stormer. It could be the meek 105-110-115 hp (depending on year) 231 V6. Or the almost equally mild-mannered 105 hp 260 V8. Wait a minute; that bigger V8 made fewer hp than the smaller V6? ‘fraid so. But it ran a bit smoother. Certainly smoother than the 90 hp 260 diesel V8, but we can be quite certain that’s not what’s under here. Last possibility is the venerable 305 Chevy V8, which came in 145 and 165 hp version in 1978, 160 hp for 1979, and 155 hp in 1980. That would be the one to have. But realistically, given the times, not a lot of 1979s and 1980s likely had the relatively punchy 305.

America’s former sweetheart, a vinyl-roofed, fake wire wheeled coupe, has been replaced, in more ways than one.

53 Comments

This Cutlass Supreme is an ’80, as it has four headlights. They may be a rare sight up your way, but they’re still very common in the South. Most of the one’s I see are donked out, but there’s still a healthy smattering of unmodified cars around.

The other indicator is the taillights – the ’78 has illuminated Olds rocket emblems in the center, the ’79 and ’80 don’t, can’t remember how to tell the latter two apart. Early-build ’78s also had a silver horizontal speedometer that was changed to black later in the year and afterwards.

Definitely a 1980. The Buick steering wheel isn’t original – that’s for sure! I often wonder when I see a different steering wheel in a vehicle like this is if maybe the original cracked and any replacement GM wheel would be acceptable to the owner. Actually for a 37 year old car it is still looking pretty solid. That is more than likely the original paint job, and there doesn’t appear to be any dents or dings to speak of. And the chrome bumpers even look great! This would be a great car to restore.

(Ironic that a 1st gen CR-V is lurking next to it in the neighbor’s yard LOL)

I think those old, cracked, hard plastic steering wheels can be repaired. I just don’t know how well or how much it costs. Likely as not, someone with a workaday car like this either doesn’t know and/or doesn’t want to spend the money on it, so they just scrounge up a non-matching junkyard replacement and go with it. In fact, I wonder if those crappy-looking, aftermarket Grant steering wheels that are in so many otherwise nice show cars is a direct result of of the owner simply not wanting to bother with a repaired OEM replacement.

Probably right rudiger. And a lot of the older Pontiac steering wheels were cushioned rimmed so they didn’t crack – you see most of them still intact. The only issue they had was the woodgrain peeling off, but the rims stayed nice over the years.

A cousin bought one in 1978 as his first new car. I was just out of high school at the time and saw it as a sign that he had “gone establishment” compared with another cousin who had bought a 280 Z then a V8-powered CJ-5.

It was hard to find a more ordinary car then, which was high treason in my universe of that time.

Also, I may be in the minority here, but I actually prefer the looks of the 1978 – ’80 models to the ‘81+ restyle (which I also like). I liked the kicked-up sculpturing on the rear quarter panels, and I also thought the twin-lens taillight clusters were more appealing. These were some of my first “favorite cars” when they were new, especially when rocking those Olds SS II wheels.

My guess for the disappearance of these as Eugenemobiles is that other than cheap and plentiful parts, they’re not well suited to that purpose.

People were willing to put up with biggish, long-doored coupes as family cars when they were “in style”, and they have reasonably big trunks and can tow a decent-sized trailer, but that’s about all they have going for them in the utility stakes, and it’ll always be easier to just fold the back seat down on a hatchback or CUV (not to mention a minivan). Plus these malaise-era V8s traded away a lot more performance than they gained back in fuel economy.

That leads me into part two – they were dogs stock, but are buildable enough that there’s a ready market for a clean West Coast car like this one, which should fetch the same money as a clean mid-00s Matrix/Vibe or the like.

When these were new, many a car enthusiast lamented how boring and ugly they were compared to their ’60s equivalents. The only real difference is that CR-Vs are high quality cars that are actually well suited to being daily-driven family cars. What fools we were for putting up with giant doors, cramped back seats and fake everything!

Tell that to my co-worker that has had his 2015 CRV in the shop a total of 10 times to try and remedy a leaking moonroof, a bad or defective wheel bearing (in less than 25K miles) and now a SEL light that made it fail inspection. Yes the moonroof took 3 tries before they figured out it had a defective drain tube and the noisy wheel bearing was pawned off as cupped tires.

I loved these G body Cutlasses from ’78 to ’88…….their square, boxy styling was tough and rugged, but still had a level of refinement and with the right wheels (even the Olds rally wheels) they could look pretty sporty. Speaking personally as someone that had one (an ’84), the quality level just wasn’t there. Mind you, I’d bought it in 1998 and someone had restored it, but by that time, some of the worst attributes were already well ensconced: the rusty rear framerails (I had to patch them), terminal lower door rust (the previous owner in the previous re-paint had put door skins on it, but they were starting to peel a bit), and when I repainted it (at least the second known re-paint) and got the body down to the bare metal, there was tons of bondo around the rear fenders. There was also a fair amount of rust that had broke all the way through in the trunk. Also, it occasionally had choke problems with the carb, and the 305 was truly gutless……you had to be on gravel to do a one wheel peel. It was embarrassing. The engine was at about 145,000 kms, so I’m not sure if it had compression problems or not (it ran good and smoothly), but if that was the way that the car’s power felt from the factory, it certainly didn’t feel like it had any torque.

The turn signal stalk had that “breaking chicken bones” feel to it that someone had mentioned in another thread. The factory stereo and speakers were cheap and generic. The accelerator pedal/ throttle cable always had a soft, mushy feeling. The doors didn’t suffer from the infamous sag, but they also didn’t shut with a convincing click; it was always mushy feeling. The door seals had the usual problems: torn/ disintegrating, and wind noise on the highway was louder than it should have been (back in 1998, new OEM seals from the stealership were $300, so the wind noise was something that you just sort of lived with).

The fate that my ’84 suffered was being t-boned and written off by someone running a red light, but each year, it became apparent to me that it was going to take a fair bit of money to keep on the road; you knew that it was a money pit. Deep down, I knew it was for the best, that the car would now sleep with most of the rest of it’s brethren. Here in Winnipeg with the harsh winters and salty roads, even by the time in 1998 when I bought it, most of those cars were trashed, completely rusted out, and the ones still on the road were generally beaters and some even had the rear bumper being held on/ up with ropes.

Mind you, this was still better than our 1980 Monte Carlo, which had all of the problems listed above, but also had severe engine/ tranny issues (soft cams, WEAK transmission that needed repairs almost every year, it seemed). The engine/ trans in the Cutlass was at least of reliable quality. It’s too bad that GM didn’t make their cars as good as they looked.

Sounds like a car from the salt belt. Most cars of this era suffered similar rust fates in these hard destructive climates. Any Cutlass I have owned that was parked for the Winter months never suffered any of these rust issues and remained solid until there demise or sale.

I always used to treat the door rubber seals right before storing away and as a result over the past 30 something years never had to replace them so some care goes a long way here.

Lets face it. None of the available engine are quick. I have owned and or driven literally every possible combination of these cars save the ridiculous 260 diesel. The 1979 edition of the 231 was the best year for that engine. It had the free breathing refinements and 115 HP. They also used better 2.73 rear gears for the 1978/79 model years which helped some. After that they changed over to the 110 HP 2.41 rear gears that gave these engine a rather sluggish slow build up of speed feel. As Consumer Guide so aptly put it “acceleration is adequate if not exciting with the std 231 V6 engine and 60 comes up in around 13 seconds. This was a test for the 1985 Regal btw.

The optional 260 was the Olds made small V8 that was pitched as an economy V8 with the traditional smoothness and quietness of a V type engine. It made 110 HP for 1978, 105 for 1979/80 and only 100 for 81/82. Despite that this motor did feel stronger and torquier on the low end with it’s 205 rating at only 1600 RPM’s. It was in foot to the floor highway passing where this mill failed and passing on a two lane highway was borderline slow.

The infamous Small Block Chevy as stated was the way to go for these cars. They made between 145-160 horses depending on carb and year. They also like the 260 used pathetic 2.29 rear gears. A 2.56 and 2.73 were available. With the 2.29 off the line was not too impressive because the LG4 305 made more of it’s power throughout the rev band and wasn’t concentrated on the low end like the Olds V8’s.

Definetely the salt belt……Winnipeg, Manitoba. I believe that now, we don’t use salt on the roads, and you can tell–vehicles seem to have far less rust. Honestly, I haven’t seen a daily driven ’78-88 in many years. I seem to remember a really beat up 78-79 commuting about, but it looked like it was on death’s door. The only ones I see are at the car shows…..there’s one ’80, and a handful of ’81-88’s that make the rounds, but that’s it. Even in the classic car rounds, the cars only survive if they’ve been modded within an inch of their life…..the 305’s are gone, the floorboards have usually been replaced, etc. There’s about two or three Hurst olds around (one by a guy that I know that had to put significant amounts of money into to restore–ie: engine was shot), and I can’t remember the last time that I saw an 80’s 442 around. It’s just the way that it is around here, at least, and by the sounds of Paul’s experiences, the way that it is in a lot of other places where vehicles need to drive through snow, and are subjected not only to salty roads, but punishing winters where it reaches sub zero temperatures and exposed skin will freeze in a couple of minutes.

The non-remote outside mirror is a clue that this a low-option car. I can see it has no tilt, tinted glass might indicate AC, though. The passenger mirror was added on, possibly by the dealer when new. The factory never offered dual manual mirrors.
In my part of the western Canada prairies back in the day, they were invariably optioned with at least AC, tilt and cruise. Tilt wheel was ordered so often around here you’d think it was standard.
The lease on my dad’s buggered up (near total, bad collision repair by dealer) 460 Elite was up in spring 1978 and I was lobbying hard for a Turbo Regal. Due to business considerations in a small town, he got a LeBaron Coupe. Real POS but that’s another story.

Very interesting and fun to see this morning. Yes, these were once very common. We- actually my wife- still has one. Can’t take it out without someone saying they once had one, or knew someone who did. Hers is a 1985 model with only around 26000 miles. It’s in excellent condition, a well cared for car that’s always been in our family, with just a minor paint problem on the hood. It’s stored for the winter now (the car has never been in snow or salt), but hopefully we’ll get things fixed this spring. Drives and rides very well, actually handling some of our rough midwestern roads better than most newer cars. It’s a V8, very smooth running. I believe I’ve shown this photo before, but here it is again.

THATS a good looking car! Brings me back to high school, actually. In the early 90s many kids my age had a G body as their first car. They were cheap to buy, well built, reliable and had the style to be considered a ‘cool car’ yet not so powerful that a dumb 16 y/o was going to get into a heap of trouble.

Yours is representative of the Cutlass many of my classmates would hope to get. RWL tires, slick top, mag style factories. It looks damn sharp. If you had granny’s hand me down with the vinyl roof, whitewalls/wire hubcaps, bench seat and column shift, that was much further down on the pecking order. And would usually end up with a set of those 5 spoke ‘sawblade’ wheels which was a questionable ‘upgrade’.

Appreciate all the compliments. “Every car has a story”, and long story short, this was my father-in-law’s first brand new car. It’s all original except the tires (it did come with raised white letters though). Here’s a photo of the interior.

I wonder how these were optioned in other parts of the country? The average 78-80 Cutlass Supreme 2-dr. back then in R.I. seemed to always be equipped with A/C, tinted glass, pinstripes, rear defroster, a vinyl top, whitewalls, AM/FM stereo, usually a wheel cover/wheel upgrade and quite often a tilt steering wheel. You very rarely saw power windows/locks/seats or cruise in the Supreme. If one stepped up to a Brougham or Calais then they were much more common with the higher level of power options – in fact, back then and even to this day I expected a Brougham to have at least power windows or it wouldn’t seem like a Brougham to me!

Why did these cars have so much front overhang, especially if they were RWD? It looks like GM just added a whole bunch of length to the front of the car for no good reason. Could they not have pushed the wheels further forward?

They left lots of cosmetic space forward of the fenders so they could differentiate between Buick, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Pontiac and, sometimes, Cadillac. They also had to restyle the cosmetic front ends every model year or two. It would have been complicated if their noses were more than just costumes.

That was the look of most 2 door personal luxury coupes back in the day and was really popular at the time. The T-Birds and Chrysler Cordoba had a similar long hood/overhang look too. The wheelbase was 108.1. it wasn’t common back in the day to have long wheelbases and short bodies like today. If anything today’s cars have a stubby short look to them and some overhang would be nice. The new Impala vs the LaCrosse is a good example. The LaCrosse is too stubby in the trunk area but the Impala is longer and as a result has more trunk space.

Ironically I would say Grand Nationals are the most common G-bodies to have survived because of their forecasted rarity and collector status. It is the plebeian models like the standard Regal and Cutlass Supreme that got used and used and eventually junked so now they have become the rarity!

Correct on the 305. The 307 was offered on the Cutlass line starting in 1981 but only for wagons. Ditto 1982. 1983 saw this engine become available across the board and std in Hurst coupes with 40 more horses.

Just returned from a week in Sarasota-Tampa, FL, where I saw, all curbside or in some form of wild, non-car show use, two of the mid-80s refresh on these. A couple who was friends with my paternal grandparents in the 80s had a grey one, probably ’84 or ’85.

Actually it was quite the CC heavy trip to the Sunshine State in terms of big American iron. I saw 3 90s Roadmaster sedans, 2 90s Roadmaster wagons, two box Caprice sedans (1 ’80-’86 generation, 1 ’87-’90), 1 box Caprice coupe (tinted but not lifted, thankfully) an ’88-’91 LTD Crown Victoria sedan, an ’88-91 Grand Marquis, an ’83-’87 Grand Marquis, 2 ’93-96 Fleetwood stretch limousines, a white/lime two-tone 1970s C10, an ’80 Sedan DeVille (almost positive–no badging that indicated otherwise), a 1960s Mercury Monterey,a ’61-’64 Continental, and an early 70s GTO convertible. There was also a VW Bug with Illinois plates that seemed like it would be a long and tiring drive.

I snapped one of the Caddy and one of the C10, but the latter was with my proper digital camera.

Last year I came across your featured car’s better-preserved twin. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to take more than just a few pictures — it was in remarkable shape. Hopefully someday I’ll catch up with this car again.

It’s not terribly uncommon to see a mid-’80s version of these cars still roaming around here in Virginia, but the pre-’81s are quite a rare sight.

My dentist keeps his 1979 Cutlass Supreme in his office parking lot. He’s had it since it new. I don’t know if it’s a runner, but it has a more advanced stage of vinyloma. Next to the Cutlass is his 1983 Nissan pickup.

There aren’t alot of old cars in my parts, but these A/G bodies still show up frequently. The rarest are the Olds/Buick 2 door fastbacks that nobody bought because both brands sold much better looking coupe versions.

I know I posted a pic of my 1987 in another thread but here it is again because this is a Cutlass thread. 26K original miles. Rust free. Bucket seats, rally gauges and tach, F-41 suspension with rear sway bar, 307 with 4 speed automatic, optional 3.08 rear gears and the rather rare Olds alloy wheels instead of the traditional rally style.

There aren’t many of these left as daily driver’s here in the Upstate, NY salt belt but some do show up on occasion. For the most part the more desirable V8 coupes or specialty SS Monte, Hurst Olds or 2+2 Pontiac GP models are in collector hands but if you do a lookup on Craiglist in most any area at least 20 some odd examples will still show up for sale. Add more for April/May after tax return season.

If you think the Cutlass coupes were getting scarce, the Cutlass sedan is even harder to find.

I bought my 1985 Cutlass Sedan for $1000 back in 2013. It has the 3.8l V6 with the 4 speed auto trans. The 3.8l V6 really did not motivate the metal any less then the 307 V8.(I also owned a 1987 Cutlass sedan with a 307 also) Both the V6 and V8 Cutty were in danger of being passed by a bicyclist going up a hill.

Here is a pic of mine. It was a full brougham with pillowed seats and doors and also a full vinyl roof.